human cloning

[miriam_e]

You know, I can't figure out what the big deal is about human cloning. People get their knickers in such a knot about it, but every identical twin on the planet is a clone. It is not like it is unnatural.

"But," those shiny-eyed, anti-cloning fanatics rush to tell me (like it matters) "there will be awful hitler-like people who clone themselves."

Really? I wonder. And some feeble law is going to stop some uber-wealthy nutcase? Like it has stopped so many other things, yeah?

"But," they breathlessly press on, "it would be a travesty of human rights to have these clones raised to be..."

...to be wealthy, powerful people? Oh the poor dears. My heart bleeds for them.
Why the hell are people worried about cloning when there are children starving all over the world?
Are people fucking nuts or something?!?!

Comments

[damien-wise.livejournal.com]

The answer to those questions is the same as it is so many other times: "Cos God told me so."
It's not possible to have a thorough, logical discussion with an irrational person.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Yes, topped with "I must make sure other people live their lives the way I say" and with a side-serving of "It is different so it must be unnatural and wrong!" The fact that it is quite natural doesn't seem to affect their pronouncements of course, just as homosexuality has been shown to be common in every intelligent species, yet it is still somehow "unnatural and wrong".

Humans can be wonderful, but can be so frustratingly insane too!

Clone Logistics

[exileinparadise.livejournal.com]

I am personally not opposed to cloning, especially for medical reasons. If I could get a clone of my own heart, for use as an unclogged replacement, that would be spiffy... and in the end I think people's quest for immortality will eventually win out.

Without memory cloning, the medical uses are about as far as cloning will ever go. So lets assume a 100% accurate clone is possible.

The real problems with cloning, for me, come in all the other areas around adding another human to the mix: do they also get your legal identity? what about inheritance if you die? what if they are the ones to kill you? etc etc etc.

Lawmakers haven't even figured out the right laws to apply to having ONE copy of a human. Every law would have to be re-examined and overhauled if two of a specific person exist.

This is different from twins who are born seperately with different initial identities, compared to someone who is *splitting* their own identity legally later in life. Someone getting a sex-change is only the barest start on the problems that cloning would create in this sort of area.

How about political problems: Imagine an infinite line of Bush clones ruling America forever into the future...

Religious problems: At what point in the cloning process would the soul be installed? (yes I am skipping the God's eminent domain human creation issue here).

How about exotic situations: what if your clone got a sex change... and you wanted to married your cloned self?

What about clone-improvement modifications?
How about a clone with the option to flip gender?
How to deal with the use of cloning as a form of immortality?
Use of clones from generation to generation?

It's a mess when humans start undergoing amoeba-like division.

Re: Clone Logistics

[jrosestar.livejournal.com]

I wrote my response before I read yours. But I think we had some of the same points.

Re: Clone Logistics

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think most of these problems will never come up, but it is important to think about them rather than simply sweep them under the carpet as society is currently doing. Also I think most of these problems are a lot easier to answer than they may seem at first blush:

Immortality through cloning is unlikely to ever be a possibility. Recent improvements in technology have shown that about half of the population have "pre-cancerous" cell groups in their bodies. If given longer lifespans these may well become a problem. We may be able to stave these off by continually replacing parts, but I doubt this will be the route chosen.

Identity is pretty clearly linked to an individual. Clones would have separate identities.

Inheritance is a good one. I expect there will be contesting of inheritances in the future because of that. :)

A clone doesn't "split" identity. The clone will almost certainly be a baby while their genetic source is older. One has life experiences, while the other is new and will grow up to be a totally different person. The older one could be a psychopath and the cloned one a well-rounded, compassionate human due to the different life experiences. They are different identities.

Clone improvement modifications? That is one area that I think might develop, and I'm all for it. The only question then becomes what is an improvement and what isn't? But that is a more general question and doesn't relate to just cloning. Hitler wanted to exterminate all manner of people to "improve" the human race. People with the genetic "disease" sickle cell anemia are will die in their twenties or thirties, but they are in large numbers around the tropics because it gives you complete immunity to malaria, so is it really an illness? There are many so called "illnesses" that are like this: they confer subtle advantages.

The question of megalomaniacs cloning themselves ad infinitum is really irrelevant to the law because no law will alter their behavior anyway, and it would fail after the first generation when a clone came to despise the original. (That would be the very first generation in Bush's case.)

Who would care if someone married their clone? Of course all the religious people would be up in arms, but that is just because they are obsessed with telling other people how to live, which in my view is one of the most prevalent forms of immorality in the world today.

Who cares if a clone could flip gender or had shark teeth or twice the brain capacity, or stronger bones, or enhanced muscles? That would simply widen the human genetic pool. It is something we could do well to have more of, because we have murdered all our nearest relatives so effectively in the past we have almost no genetic variability. That is dangerous. Diversity makes survival more likely. Purity equals stagnation and death.

As I say most of these things are not really a problem. People just think they are. Really if you step back from it, the problem usually just comes down to xenophobia.

[jrosestar.livejournal.com]

On one hand I don't have a problem with cloning because - as you say, it's really just another way of creating life. (giving birth?)

But on the other hand the conspiracy theorist in me can't help but fear that someone somewhere will create large farms of clones that live out their lives in peacefulness, like livestock - until an organ is needed for the original person.

Or we finally manage to do brain transplant surgery and the soul/memories/mind go with the brain - you could keep replenishing yourself - but you are taking away the life force of that person.

And, if I looked at it from a Faith based ideology - one has to wonder at what point is a new soul created - or when a body accepts a soul (for those of us who believe in reincarnation)...would a human clone have a soul? On the other hand - would a human clone need a soul?

Personally, I get fascinated by all the different possibilities.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Good point Jean. I'd forgotten about the organ farm aspect. I think it actually works the opposite way to how we'd normally expect.

Firstly, I doubt we will ever develop clone/organ farms. It will be cheaper, more effective, and more moral to grow stem cells. Making cloning illegal will not stop such farms if there is some "good" reason for them; they will simply stay underground. It also means that some people might be able to feel that clones are less than human, that they are unnatural, and have less rights. It seems obvious to me that they have full human rights, like identical twins do.

Hmmm... I feel a story coming on...

One danger of not allowing research on stem cells or growing organs is the future foreseen by Larry Niven in his stories where the world's poor are prey to kidnapping and murder by the wealthy classes for their organs.

I won't get into the soul as I think the concept is fairly easily disposed of by things like split brain surgery (thankfully no longer performed) where two individuals suddenly end up existing inside the same skull, and various other arguments I recount in my little piece at http://werple.net.au/~miriam/soulless.html (which I must rewrite for more clarity).

[gigglestheclown.livejournal.com]

Identical twins are not "clones"

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

And why do you think that?

Identical genes = clone.

They start as one embryo, but very early when the embryo is a small ball of cells, one or more of the cells separate and the pair grow as two individuals.

They are clones, but they are entirely separate individuals. It is a nice reminder of how little personality is the result of genetics. For instance your twin might not troll communities thinking that being banned was cool.

See? Different. But genetically identical.

[gigglestheclown.livejournal.com]

No they are not clones. A clone is an exact duplicate. If they (identical twins) were clones than they'd have the same fingerprints, birthmarks etc.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Identical twins have the same genes as they both come from the same egg. Birthmarks aren't genetically determined, and I seem to recall something about fingerprints not being solely determined by genes either (not sure about that though, I'll have to look it up). If identical twins don't have the same fingerprints then that simply shows that genes don't determine everything, and the same would apply to any other kind of clone too. Identical twins, by definition, are clones. They share the same genes.

Why do you have a problem with this?

[gigglestheclown.livejournal.com]

I don't have a problem with it its just that I'm friends with someone who is an identical twin and he would be a bit offended at being called a clone.
I wasn't intentially trying to annoy you by posting in your journal.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

This relates directly to the original thing I posted. I don't know why people have this awful reaction about clones. The very word evokes negative reactions from people. Why? It is not that clones are unnatural. All identical twins are clones; the majority of aphids are clones; most single celled animals and plants are clones; several species of lizard are entirely populations of clones (there are no males). Clones are completely natural.

I wasn't offended by your post here. I did think your post to lesbian was stupid, but that was the intention wasn't it. It should be surprising to you that I take your comments honestly enough to reply intelligently to them after you damaged your reputation like that.

[gigglestheclown.livejournal.com]

I personally don't give a shit about my Livejournal reputation. But I do thank you for replying to my posts about cloning. I don't really understand why the word clone brings up negative reations. I think the whole thing just makes people uncomfortable due to the media's over-the-top reactions.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Reputations are more valuable than most people think. Once lost they are extremely hard to regain. Other people's view plays a large part in determining a person's intelligence, resolve, level of satisfaction and wellbeing, and how you see others.

Here is an example of what I mean: Some experiments years ago (which would never get done today) ran intelligence tests on a class of kids, then unknown to the teachers or the kids the experimenters swapped the results so that the smarter kids got the low results and the low-scoring kids got the high results. The experimenters retested the class some time later and found, to their surprise, that the new scores had changed to fit what the teachers thought the previous results were.

There is a lot of evidence to indicate that longevity and freedom from disease correlates well to how people are regarded by those around them.

Nobody should become a slave to other's opinions, but assassinating your reputation can backfire in ways we are just coming to understand.

I think you have hit the nail on the head about why cloning produces such negative reactions. The media. They sensationalise stuff because by scaring and outraging people they can sell stuff. They have given up selling the news and now concentrate on selling fear and propaganda.

[belegdel.livejournal.com]

now concentrate on selling fear and propaganda.

True but that really only enhances existing fears (otherwise the media couldn't prey on them as they do).
I wonder if sci-fi has a hand in the generation of the nascent fear of cloning. Obviously all the sci-fi material about cloning is utter rubbish in terms of scientific fact but they are overwhelmingly negative.

I wonder if that, combined with the tiny level of legitimacy imparted by the very term "science fiction", is the seed that grew into fear of cloning. Often when you quiz people who oppose cloning you end up discovering one of the sci-fi myths about cloning.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

It is mostly in USA and to a lesser extent Britain and Australia that the media so blatantly manipulate people's fears for sales. In other countries, like Canada and many European countries the media mostly report the real news. However I think it is an increasingly common phenomenon in all countries.

When I first moved into my house, way out in the country, I was very happy and relaxed, living here on my own. After a while I was asked by a few people "aren't you scared, living out there by yourself?" and that combined with watching a few scary news items ended up creating fear in me where none previously existed and for a while I felt worried. I soon pulled myself together and ceased watching the propaganda on TV and pointed out to people that cities are far more dangerous. I am no longer scared. My point is that media do create fear rather than simply enhancing it. Fear sells.

There are good science fiction stories that treat cloning as something not to be feared. You may be mistaking Hollywood's version of science fiction for what is true, good, science fiction.

I completely agree with your point about asking people what they fear from cloning, that they tend to give a (Hollywood) science fiction answer. The "news" media and Hollywood have become almost inseparable. I think this has poisoned them both and they're making society sick.